


Burn Up the Ashes

by Orockthro



Series: Meme of Interest [7]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Nathan Ingram is mentioned, Number Crunch, PTSD related things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 06:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orockthro/pseuds/Orockthro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold’s mouth is dry and he almost doesn’t hear the man say, “No questions asked,” over the thrum of his own heartbeat. “Does that apply to you as well?”</p>
<p>Harold can see the slow rise and fall of Mr. Reese’s chest. The sheet over his legs is covered in blood, but he’s breathing. It’s hypnotic to watch. “Yes it does, Mr. Madani. Seeing as m--,” he pauses long enough to lick his lips, “--as the man you’ve just operated on is in no condition to speak, it applies exclusively to me.”</p>
<p>(Or, another take on the gap between Number Crunch and Super, with respect to Harold and <i>bombs<i> and what we learned in the S2 finale.)</i></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn Up the Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from the POI Kink Meme: _Finch PTSD(ish) - Finch doesn't handle people he loves being put in soon-i'll-explode-and-you'll-be-left-alone situations. Go_
> 
> Warning for probably inaccurate medical stuff. Some blood, but nothing I don't think the show would air. Also warning for loose descriptions of flashbacks and stuff related to PTSD. Also warning for self indulgence and no beta. XD
> 
> I was pretty conflicted while writing this because so many amazing people have already written so many amazing missing scenes for this. So I'm posting it with utter respect for what's come before.

There isn’t time to think after the car explodes and he watches the man die before he can warn him. There are two women still alive who need their help, and then Mr. Reese is in the backseat of his car, bleeding out slowly and sagging against the seat belt. It’s only after the struggle to get him on the gurney and into the basement morgue, after the money is dropped onto the table, after Reese put under anesthesia and the soon-to-be-legal doctor is pumping fresh blood into him on the mortuary table and closing up holes, that the world goes gray and he sees Nathan’s face, lit up by the gold light of the car bomb.

He’s in a chair with his head between his knees, the doctor’s lightly accented voice asking if he needs to lay down. He can see his hands shaking on his knees, but he can’t feel them. His shoulder throbs, as does his leg, and there’s a scuff of dirt on the stolen white lab coat from the floor. He must have fainted. He doesn’t remember. It’s embarrassing, but nothing compared to the realization that the only place to lay other than the floor is the gurney covered in Mr. Reese’s blood. Mr. Madani’s hand is on his back, hovering hot over the scar.

“I’m alright. Please continue your work, doctor.” He intentionally stresses the title, lets the words bite. He doesn’t aim to threaten, but it’s important for the coroner to remember what’s at stake. Mr. Reese cannot die.

He stays in the uncomfortable chair while Mr. Madani works. It’s a long time before he puts his tools down on the stainless steel table with a clink, and Finch spends counting out the digits of pi and thinking of anything but Nathan. Blood runs in rivulets down the hollowed out troughs designed specifically to aid in bleeding-out cadavers, and Harold finds himself light headed again. The hum of blood against his ears is reminiscent of the ringing that left him half-deaf for hours after the car bomb. He takes a deep breath in through his mouth and out through his nose. The smell of blood is pungent and hot, even though the room is pleasantly chilled.

Mr. Madani moves in slow and methodical ways. He deposits his tools in the sink and scrubs them with hot soapy water that steams up the air. Harold’s mouth is dry and he almost doesn’t hear the man say, “No questions asked,” over the thrum of his own heartbeat. “Does that apply to you as well?”

Harold can see the slow rise and fall of Mr. Reese’s chest. The sheet over his legs is covered in blood, but he’s breathing. It’s hypnotic to watch. “Yes it does, Mr. Madani. Seeing as m--,” he pauses long enough to lick his lips, “--as the man you’ve just operated on is in no condition to speak, it applies exclusively to me.”

“Alright,” he says. Harold lets out a breath when the doctor says nothing more. He cleans Mr. Reese up, removes the bloody sheet, and goes about washing him of the blood and gore. There is no nurse to do the job, but the man does the work calmly and efficiently and with a gentle care. He moves to help, but the shaking in his legs keeps him in place. Mr. Madani wipes a washcloth over Reese’s face. He watches as John doesn’t move, mouth slack and eyes shut, as the white cloth passes over his nose and towards his blood-caked forehead, covering him.

Finch whites out.

He’s aware of it this time. He can feel the hard floor against his back and Mr. Madani lifting his ankles to rest on the seat of the plastic chair he just toppled out of. He tries to say something, but the motion of the fall and then his leg being pushed to the limit of its range of motion has his back screaming, and all that comes out is a hiss.

“Will it count as a question if I ask what sort of pain medication you are on?”

“Yes,” he grinds out. The single syllable leaves him nauseated.

The doctor is probing at his hip. He feels a finger catch on a line of scar tissue that runs up his spine. The skin on skin contact is a fire poker, despite the clinical touch.

“Your patient is over there, doctor,” he chokes. He can’t see John from this angle, can’t see the rise and fall of his chest.

Mr. Madani has moved his hands and is gently taking his pulse at the wrist. “He will live, and I am not asking any questions.”

He needs to see Reese. He throws an arm out and it connects with Mr. Madani who braces under him as he slips his legs off the chair and stiffly raises himself.

“He will live,” Mr. Madani repeats. Finch breathes slowly.

 

“I cannot write a legal prescription,” he says, as he hands over a slip list of painkillers, anti inflammatories, and antibiotics. “But a man who carries two hundred thousand dollars in cash in a handbag doesn’t need one, I don’t think.” The list is written on the back of an autopsy diagram, the outlines of the body showing through the thin paper.

Harold doesn’t answer with anything other than a raised eyebrow, and plucks the list from him.

“At the risk of asking a question, how will you transport him? Care for him? I only saved his life, there is still much left to be done. I can suggest--”

“Quite frankly, Mr. Madani, you have done enough.”

Mr. Madani helps him, though, in getting Mr. Reese situated in a wheelchair without pulling any of the careful stitching he just put into place. He’s still unconscious, but his eyes are fluttering and his fingers are twitching. The doctor suggests they wait until he wakes fully before moving him, but Finch keeps seeing shadows under the door, keeps hearing footsteps in the hall that aren’t there.

He shakes Mr. Madani’s hand and pushes Mr. Reese from the room in the wheelchair. For the first time in days, in months, he doesn’t have a plan. He struggles to get Mr. Reese into the backseat of the car, on the other side this time. He doesn’t want John to have to sit in his own blood. Luckily the man is waking up, however slowly, and can help him slightly.

“You mustn’t put any weight on your leg, John,” he says. Mr. Reese looks at him with fuzzy eyes and bats a weak arm at him. He is surprisingly compliant, lets Finch buckle the seatbelt around him and arrange his legs.

Harold’s hands are shaking by the time he maneuvered himself into the driver’s seat and places them on the steering wheel. He dials Megan Tillman’s number as he pulls the car out of the morgue’s underground parking lot.

“Hello?” She sounds tired. He looks over to the clock on the dashboard and realizes it’s four in the morning.

“Dr. Tillman. You don’t know me, but we have a mutual friend who needs your help.”

“Who is this?”

He watches Mr. Reese list against the seatbelt in the rear view mirror. He reads off the list of medications the coroner gave him from memory, not taking his eyes from the road. “Please bring them, and meet me at this address.” He gives her the location of a safe house. It’s not one he wants to lose, but he doesn’t care.  

She’s silent on the line.

“Dr. Tillman. Please. Your sister needed help, but no one could be there in time.” He echoes his words to Mr. Reese and he’s not sure if it’s intentional or not. “I’m offering you the chance to be there in time.” His voice catches. He know’s he’s being cruel. Nathan would never have used her sister’s death like this. “Please.”

 

She’s at the safehouse when he pulls the car into it.

“I remember you. You needed pain medication, had a fused spine.”

“Yes.”

He expects her to push, to call him a liar, to demand answers, but she stands, still as a statue, until he yanks the back car door open. She sees John, still buckled into the seat, and goes white. He looks back at her, still fuzzy from the drugs Mr. Madani pumped into his system, but doesn’t speak.

“I thought that’s maybe who you meant.” She stands still for awhile and he doesn’t rush her. She’s so still he’s not even sure she’s breathing. John is out of immediate danger, although Finch’s heart is still thumping loudly against his chest.

“Is he--” she stumbles on her words and sucks her lips in before continuing. “Someone else did triage?”

“Yes.” It was always so easy with Mr. Reese to know what was information that needed sharing and what wasn’t. Now he’s at a loss. “A surgeon operated on him. He’s stable.” The words taste stronger than he feels.

“Good.” She doesn’t waste time talking after that, and takes one of Mr. Reese’s arms in hers while he struggles to slide under the other. Together they manage to maneuver him into the collapsable, hospital-grade wheelchair, and Finch lets the doctor roll him up the ramp to the safe house.

It’s a small place, but one he’d outfitted to be handicap accessible and had used himself after his own surgeries. He hasn’t been back to it since, but the key pad access is one of the reasons he picked it; his thumbprint alone is enough to swing the door open on automatic hinges. He flips on a light and helps her navigate the chair to a bedroom on the ground floor. By the time they get John lifted out of the chair and placed onto the bed, Finch’s legs are trembling with exertion and a spot of blood is seeping through Reese’s pant leg.

“Damn,” Dr. Tillman says, and leaves the room to grab an impressively large duffle bag filled with medical supplies. Mr. Reese blinks at him, conscious, but only just. His eyes roam, unfocused, between Harold and the ceiling light.

“Safe?” John’s voice is hoarse and so quiet it’s almost inaudible, but Harold is used to picking up the soft syllables from the headsets.

“Yes, John, you’re safe,” he says, and forces his legs to propel him to the bed. He doesn’t know if he should touch him, if that’s too much. He settles on resting a hand lightly on John’s shoulder, relieved to find him solid and warm.

“No. You?”

It doesn’t hit him but creeps in slowly like a tide after a second passes. “Yes. Yes, I’m safe too.” His back aches, his neck throbs, and his hip is on fire, but it’s different this time. He repeats it over and over in his head until Dr. Tillman redresses the leg wound, hooks John up to an IV, and pushes up his shirt to check his abdomen.

“Shot?”

He nods.

“Well whoever did the surgery did a good job. He needs time, a steady stream of antibiotics, but he should recover.” She tucks the shirt back down. It’s still covered in blood, stiff and brown now. “I’m going to sedate him. He needs to keep still and rest for awhile. It's going to be a long recovery.”

There are no chairs in the room. When he’d used it to recover from his own surgeries, there had been no one to visit and no reason to furnish the place for imaginary people. He leans against the bed and closes his eyes until Dr. Tillman is at his elbow.

“I’ve seen that look before.” There isn’t any pity in her voice, but there isn’t any compassion either. “He’ll be alright. Let’s get some food in you.”

He lets her lead him to the kitchen where he sinks into a hard wooden chair. He’s surprised when she produces a granola bar; he’d thought the kitchen empty. She slides it to him across the table and sits down opposite him. The overhead lights illuminate the shadows under her eyes but not much else. He forgot how spartan this place was when he left it. The table is fit for two, only because tables for one aren’t marketed, and the shelves are empty.

“I can't stop thinking about it. I can't put it out of my head. Wondering how he killed him, if it was slow or fast. If he used the lye.”

He doesn’t think she wants an answer, so he doesn’t give her one. The granola bar sits between them, unopened on the table in its silver packaging.

“I never thought I’d see him again. I never thought I’d have to decide if I wanted to know. I thought it would be over. But it’s never over, is it?”

He lets the silence eke on. He closes his eyes and sees Nathan, lit up by fire. “No. It’s never over.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is love!


End file.
